1. Field
One or more exemplary embodiments relate to a probe and a medical imaging apparatus including the same, and more particularly, to a probe having an adjustable field of view and a medical imaging apparatus including the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the medical imaging field, the demand for information about a tissue (for example, of a human body or a skin) and for technology imaging a lower tomography is increasing. In particular, most of cancers occur under an epithelial cell, and metastasize to inside a hypodermal cell. Therefore, when it is possible to early detect cancer, a damage caused by the cancer is considerably reduced. A related art imaging technology using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus, a computed tomography (CT) apparatus, ultrasound, or the like images an internal tomography through a skin, but since a resolution is low, it is difficult to early detect small-size cancer.
On the other hand, recently proposed optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology, optical coherence microscopy (OCM) technology, and photoacoustic tomography (PAT) technology may use light to diagnose early stages of cancer. Although a skin penetration depth may be as low as 1 mm to 2 mm for the OCT technology or 50 mm to 50 mm for the PAT technology, a resolution is higher by about ten to twenty times than the ultrasound, and thus, these technologies may usefully diagnose incipient cancer.
The described-above medical imaging methods use a small-size probe receives light from a light source to transfer the light to inside a human body, for applying endoscope, celioscope, an surgical robot, and the like to the inside of the human body.
Probes are categorized into side-looking probes and forward-looking probes. For example, the side-looking probes are used to scan a narrow area such as a cardiovascular vessel, a throat, a large intestine, or the like, and the forward-looking probes are used to scan a broad part such as an eye, a skin, a digestive organ, or the like. However, the side-looking probes and the forward-looking probes have a limitation in that a field of view (FOV) is limited. Also, it is known that a three-dimensional (3D) forward-looking probe having a high resolution is more effective for chronic total occlusion or therapeutic than the side-looking probe. In addition, most of tissues are dependent on a directional angle of an ultrasound wave or light, and thus, a field of view is required to be adjusted. Therefore, the probe needs to be changed in accordance with a forward-looking operation or a scan-looking operation according to a looked object or a scan method, which is cumbersome and requires extra probes.